Mirjam Abigail Twigt

Qualifications

MSc (with distinction), International Development Studies, Chairgroup Disaster Studies, Wageningen University and Research Centre, The Netherlands (2012).
MSc, Medical Anthropology, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands (2008)

PhD topic
The Mediation of Everyday Displacement among Iraqi Refugee Households in Jordan

Third year

Member of the Migration Network and Interdisciplinary PhD in Sociology.

Preliminary Brief of PhD

My research project focuses upon Iraqi refugees in Jordan as it aims to explore how their mediated landscape places a role in the experience of displacement. In regard to forced migration the influence of media on everyday live and the perceptions of where one’s future has hardly been explored. The few notable exceptions show that media (mass media and social media) can influence one’s feelings of security, but can also provide opportunities to strategize and negotiate one’s position of insecurity (Horst, 2006; Moore and Clifford, 2007). I argue that we need to consider the experiences of forced migrants in a contextualized manner. Media are co-constitutive of their everyday social reality. Due to its dispersed and unsettled nature, the need for transnational communication between migrants and their family and friends is especially important. Indeed, ethnographic research has led to the conclusion that diasporic communities are often vanguards of digital media and technology (Karim, 2003; Sinclair & Cunningham, 2001).

This project therefore explores media use in the context of forced migration. It aims to understand how mediated, competing knowledge traditions play a role in the negotiation of insecurity. It offers an ethnographic exploration of Iraqi households in Jordan paying attention to the different means to acquire knowledge regarding one’s situation and one’s future. It considers how displacement affects different members within the household differently and different media forms are used to make sense and negotiate one’s changed situation.

Supervisors
Dr. Leah Bassel and Prof. Helen Wood

Publications

Twigt, M.A. (2016) Iraqi refugee households in Jordan: the active search for solutions. In: Forced Migration Review 51, January. Available at: http://www.fmreview.org/destination-europe/twigt

Tacchetti, M., Twigt, M.A., Musiyiwa, A., Kaulfuss, S., (2015) Für gemeinsame öffentliche Räume: Graswurzelbewegung in der Flüchtlingshilfe, Informationszentrum 3. Welt (iz3w) Vol. 352

Twigt, M.A. (2013) Negotiating Dissolution: A Study on Resettement, Power and Place among the Iraqi Refugee Community in Jordan. MSc Thesis, Wageningen University and Research Centre, Wageningen.

Twigt, M.A. (2008) Beyond Babies and Borders: Female Sudanese Refugees in Cairo and their Access to Sexual and Reproductive Health. University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam in cooperation with the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 

Conference Papers and Presentations

Post-graduate Conference ‘Social Sciences and Digital Worlds: New Technologies, Old Methods. Department of Sociology, University of Leicester. 2015. Delegate. Paper presented: ‘Online displacement: Iraqi refugees in Jordan and their relationship with digital media.’

British Sociological Association Annual Conference 2015 – Societies in Transition: Progression or Regression? Glasgow Caledonian University, Delegate. Paper presented: ‘Insecurity and Everyday Life: An Ethnographic Case-study on the Mediation of the Everyday among Iraqi Refugee Households in Jordan.’

World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies 2010 – Delegate: panel presentation on Gender and Ethnicity in African Forced Migration towards the Middle East